Introducing The Marikar Scale

As humans we are storytellers. From going home and telling your partner/parents about your day; to thrilling your friends in the pub with the tale of that time you fought off fifteen ninjas while handcuffed to a pipe, we love to tell stories. Unfortunately we're not all good at it. We've all been there when a friend or acquaintance has been carefully explaining the finer details of a story we're just not interested in. Or a story that starts well but goes nowhere.

A few years ago my friend Preston and I were told one these terrible anecdotes by a pale faced, lanky friend of ours named Matthew Fear. Inspired by this exercise in insipidness, we developed the Marikar scale - a way to rate the banality of your friends stories and anecdotes.

We named the scale after our old Biology teacher Mr Marikar: the subject of Fear's story who, at the time, was due to leave for a school in Manchester - the same city Fear would be moving to the following year. As I write this I'm suddenly struck by the unfairness of attributing the scale to Mr Marikar - who, as merely the subject of the tale, probably doesn't deserve to have his name immortalised as a measurement of dull anecdotes.

The Marikar scale goes from 1 to 10. 1 would be an engaging, enjoyable anecdote that you would happily hear again. Fear's story, still the most pointless story I've ever heard, is a full 10. The complete, unabridged tale goes like this:

"I saw Mr Marikar the other day. He said to me 'I'll see you in Manchester.' 
And I said 'OK.'"

Anything that is more interesting, entertaining or informative than that story gets a lower mark. Anything less interesting, entertaining or informative than that story doesn't actually exist.

Use the Marikar scale next time someone tells you a story. And consider it the next time you start one. Remember, anything above a 5 isn't worth telling. Your friends will thank you.

The Riddle of my Employment

In September 2013 I had two interviews for a 3 month job with a textile wholesale company in Manchester. For purposes of this story let's call the company "Manchester Textiles*". I was interviewed by a lady called Valerie, who was to be my manager if I got the role. The interview went well and I had a positive feeling about my chances of getting the job. I then went three months without hearing anything.

In December I was told that the company had gone in to administration and been significantly downsized to a staff of just 7 people. They'd also moved to smaller offices in the town of Haslingden. Nevertheless they still wanted me and asked me to start in January, on a permanent basis.

When I started I learned that the company had been bought back from the administrators by the original directors, but had been renamed "Haslingden Bedding". After rebranding, the company sold off the last of its old product ranges and I was to focus solely on the new 2014 collection of duvet covers and pillowcases.

Two days after I started Valerie moved to Australia. She told me she'd still be involved in the company and would still work closely with me through emails and skype. I received two emails from her in the couple of weeks following this, and then nothing.

In April I was called in to the boardroom and told that Haslingden Bedding had been sold to another company that operated out of the same building. Though the Haslingden Bedding brand was to continue, it would now be a subsidiary of Mill Textiles. The existing directors would become silent partners with no input in to the day-to-day running of the company.

So that's (A) a permanent role in (B) a different town, for (C) a different brand with (D) a smaller staff, owned by (E) a different company, where I work with (F) a different product range, and have nothing to do with (G) the original directors or (H) the person who conducted the interview and hired me.


So my question is:

At which point did I start a job that I didn't interview for?




*All names of people and companies have been changed in the interest of not pissing off my employers (whoever the hell they are).

The Age Of Parrots - Epilogue (Or: A More Optimistic Note To End On)

"We seldom realise, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society."

- Alan Wilson Watts.

My Age of Parrots series was originally intended to have 3 parts, but when I got to the end of it I found that there were a few more interesting points that I'd been unable to get to. I didn't want to do a full "Part 4" for these points, because I think the other three covered all the major areas that I wanted to talk about. But I also didn't want to lose them. So this piece should serve as a kind of epilogue to the series, a bit of further reading as opposed to a chapter itself.

First a quick recap:
Part 1 - In which I looked at the term "Grammar Nazi" and how, even though it makes little sense, it has become a well known and accepted phrase. This is just one of many words and phrases that just get picked up in modern culture by people repeating them without giving any thought to what they are saying.

Part 2 - In which I looked at the Harlem Shake meme - in which people would upload videos of them dancing to a song in exactly the same fashion as millions of others. It's almost an attack on creativity the way that videos like this will become insanely popular, and get a ludicrous amount of views even though they present nothing new or interesting. People see something that they like, so they do that exact thing. And others still seem to like it.

Part 3 - In which I looked at the effects of all of this. How repeating memes and stupid phrases so much throughout popular culture means that we refuse to recognise something that doesn't include those things. They get forced in to places they don't belong, where they'll then be discussed with more passion and more detail than the thing they were forced in to.

It's interesting to me that a lot of people will not agree with the things that I've said in this series of essays. They might argue that copying things in the way that I've been complaining about is really just joining in. By talking the way others do they establish a shorthand, a connection between people. Why does it matter how they say things as long as everyone involved can understand? Similarly, by repeating memes, they're becoming part of something bigger and more exciting. They're joining in with other people. In cases like Harlem Shake they're getting friends and colleagues together to all do something silly as a group. It's harmless and fun, and what's wrong with that?

And it's hard to argue with that, because it would be like telling people that they're having fun wrong. It just seems ridiculous. But when you try and look at these things objectively it's hard not to wonder about them, and it's hard not to wonder about the effects of them. And there will always be people who see these things in different ways. People who will say and do stupid things to be part of a group, and people who will look at the group and not understand why they'd want to be part of it. And you can argue that it's all just fun, and that being included is better than sneering in from the outside. But when you come across a person who everyone is convinced is "just so funny" when all he does is shout Anchorman quotes at you, it's hard to be in the group that supports him.

___________________________________________

Something I wanted to go in to in every part of the series, that I had to leave out each time because I always felt it would take too much attention away from the main thesis of the individual essays, is the argument that we've always been doing these things for as long as we've had a society. The English language is a mongrel bastardisation of several much older languages, that has developed massively over centuries of people picking and choosing the way they want to say and write things, and by copying the way other people do it. And the creative output of the modern world, at least in part is based around copying concepts as basic as the three act structure or the twelve bar blues. On the less positive side, you can't talk about people mindlessly copying the words and thoughts of others without your thoughts straying to religion and the effect that it's had over the world*.

My point is that maybe the Age of Parrots isn't a recent thing. Maybe it's not just something you come across on the internet, but something that has shaped the entirety of our cultural history. Maybe now that technology has enabled us to connect to each other, it becomes more noticeable. We may parrot to a greater extent, but we also get tired of it much more quickly. The part of this series that looked at the Harlem Shake, for example, is already dated because we - as a society - are already over that particular meme. Maybe we're not looking at the beginning of the Age of Parrots. Maybe we're not even looking at the continuation of the Age of Parrots. Maybe, now that we can see what's happening more clearly, now that we can understand the way these things play out, and now that we can actually get over these things in a matter of weeks, we are actually looking at the end of the Age of Parrots. An age that's been going on for as long as we have.

And that's a nice thought.



*Now might be a good moment to take a break from this and listen to John Lennon's "Imagine". 

The Age Of Parrots, Part 3 (Or: Why You Shouldn't Read Comments Sections).

Read Part 1 and Part 2.

"I've been imitated so well I've heard people copy my mistakes."

- Jimi Hendrix

There was a recent article on the BBC website about gap year volunteers, and whether they do more harm than good. It was an interesting article and the writer, Daniela Papi, clearly put a lot of work in to providing a strong, detailed case about a topic she cared about. What I found strange about the piece though was the headline: "Is 'Gap Yah' Volunteering A Bad Thing?"*. Just in case you were confused by the title, the website helpfully added a panel to the side of the article that explained the premise of the popular 2010 sketch, including an explanation of the central jokes - so you know why you're supposed to be laughing, even if you still don't quite get it. Apparently the BBC is now that annoying friend who always interrupts stories to tell you about a new Youtube clip that you have to watch as soon as you get a chance (because, oh my god, you have to see it, it's SO funny). Nowhere else in the article is it referred to as a gap "yah", and the article itself does not mention or refer to the gap yah sketch. So why is it presented this way in the headline?

It's common knowledge that journalists do not usually write headlines to their own articles - this is left to the copy editor or layout designer - and from the content and tone of the piece in question I do not expect that Papi would have used the term "Gap Yah" in her title, had she written it herself. So what's happened is that someone has actually decided that the best way to draw readers to this considered, serious piece of writing is with a reference to to a three year old comedy sketch. Is this really necessary? Do we need to know that an article will feature a familiar punchline before we'll click on it? Will we only read things if we think they have something to do with a funny video that we've seen before?

In this series I've tried to highlight ways in which people unthinkingly copy others - we change the way we speak to take on terms that others use, we find entertainment and creative satisfaction in making facsimiles of other peoples output - and given the trend a name. But now I want to look deeper. I want to look at the effects of this.

Because I found the titling of the aforementioned article so strange, I went to the comments section to see if anyone else had pointed it out**. The top comment was from a man named Richard Gledhill, who said "The problem is with any person whom pronounces it a 'Gap Yah' it really is as simple as that. A gap year is time out to travel between life stages. A Gap Yah is a time for pretentious pillocks to spend mummy and daddies inherited wealth." Richard Gledhill is a man with strong, and sometimes controversial, views on things like third generation inheritance and the correct usage of the word "whom", and feels that we should all be aware that as long as you don't talk like people in a comedy sketch, you can do what you like. Richard Gledhill also feels that reading more than the title of an article is not necessary before commenting on it.

Similarly - and I'm sorry if it seems like I'm always attacking people who say mean things about me but it fits nicely - some cowardly dimwit who didn't leave a name commented on the first article of this series to inform me that Nazi really meant fascist and that the rules of grammar were just a viewpoint held by a few people who try to force it on everyone else. Now not only is this person clearly an idiot for thinking either of these things, but also I think it was pretty clear that the point of the piece wasn't that I was confused about the existence of a punctuation holocaust. It was - well - the parrot thing.

Now neither of these internet comments involve copying other people, but each is part of the deeper problem. Both Richard Gledhill and Nameless Twerp publicly commented on an online article without at any point referencing the main thesis of the piece. Neither took the time to consider what the author was actually trying to say; what was more important to both was sharing their own pessimistic, reactionary views. And both of them defended the use of the terms they did reference. NT attempted to widen the definitions of the individual words in "Grammar Nazi" in order to protect the phrase's right to exist. And Richard Gledhill supports the usage of the phrase "Gap Yah", because it allows him to identify people he hates. Both of them cared this deeply about a pair of phrases that only came in to existence in the last decade. And of course the original copy editor of the BBC editor promoted the phrase in the title of the piece - despite its associations having nothing to do with the article it preceded.

This is where the Age of Parrots becomes dangerous. Not just for the people mindlessly copying everything, but for the people who exist in a world full of those copies. People become so used to seeing them everywhere they look that they don't recognise anything around them. Half the world are putting old covers on new books, while other half won't open the books because they don't like the covers.

The Age of Parrots affects everyone. It represses logical thought. It drowns creativity. And it forces the simplification of everything to it's lowest, most basic form.





*It appears that, since I started writing this piece, the BBC have changed the wording in the title to now say "Gap Year". I won't speculate on what made them change this, I'm just glad they decided to. Even if it makes my article look silly. The description of the sketch is still on there.

**It says something about the state of the internet when I feel that I have to make excuses for why I would read comments on a news website. Or maybe it just says something about me. It's hard to be sure.